Hell on Wheels

How to (try to) do a Western in the post-Deadwood universe.

The secret to AMC’s well-deserved reputation is that it creates series around anti-heroes you want to root for. So far, though, Hell on Wheels frontman Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount) ain’t no Walter White. Or Don Draper.

Named after an actual mobile work camp in Nebraska, Hell on Wheels
follows the politics, greed and post-traumatic stress that fueled the
quest to build Union Pacific’s first transcontinental railroad.

Series creators Joe and Tony Gayton are aspiring to
replicate the gritty, lawless society that was post-Civil War America.
This might have been a gutsy proposition if we hadn’t already lived
through Deadwood. David Milch’s foul-mouthed, filthy and fascinating HBO series has likely ruined anyone else’schance at creating an “edgy” Western. The Gaytons are fighting an uphill battle.

Mount’s Bohannan, a former Confederate soldier, has no
commitment to uniting the east and west; he just wants to kill the men
responsible for his wife’s death. “Tell Me About Meridian” is the only
thing he says before he wastes dudes. It’s like Samuel L. Jackson’s
“Ezekiel 25:17” speech in Pulp Fiction, only not awesome.

Bohannan is being billed as “neither a hero nor a villain”
because he’s diplomatic to the newly freed slaves, in spite of the fact
that he fought to keep them enslaved.

Hip-hop singer and actor Common is one of the newly
“emancipated” men working the chain gang. He’s impatient for his life to
start looking different than it did during slavery. He slashes
someone’s throat for Bohannan and then they’re indebted to each other.

“I don’t care about people relating with my character, and
I don’t care about people finding any redemptive qualities,” Mount said
in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I care about people understanding my character.”

In its second season, Jason Priestley’s Richard “Fitz”
Fitzpatrick, the disheveled, alcoholic owner of a used car dealership,
may be marked for death. He and his hilarious “conscience,” Larry,
(Ernie Grunwald), get into hi-jinx similar to those in HBO’s Bored to Death. Every scene with Fitz’s flawed family is darkly gorgeous. (Direct TV Audience Network, Thursdays, 9:30 pm)

Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness

No, Jack Black doesn’t do the voice of Po, but voice actor Mick Winglet (he of the Kung Fu Panda
videogame) is a good vocal pinch-hitter. If you love the movie, you’ll
enjoy the animated series, which is more than you can say for most inane
cartoon series. (Nickelodeon, Mondays, 5:30 pm)

The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now?

The two-hour special offers the “now” lives some of your
favorite contestants. Chefs will be showing you how to cook a healthy
Thanksgiving meal so you don’t end up like the “before” pictures, and if
that doesn’t sell it for you, there will be a blooper reel! (NBC, Wed.
Nov. 23, 9 pm)